Chinese fishing firm lands tuna for American Samoa canners

A leading Chinese fishing company is offloading tuna catches in American Samoa in order to reduce the costs of transporting it back to China.

The ‘Ping Tai Rong Cheng 2’ vessel called last month at American Samoa to unload tuna catches, according to an executive at the company that owns the vessel, Ping Tai Rong Ocean Fishery Co. The company has long served the EU market and calling at Samoa “saves our transport costs,” according to the executive.

Ping Tai Rong Ocean Fishery Co – which aims for an IPO on one of China’s two main stock exchanges (Shanghai and Shenzhen) - now has 26 long liners and two reefers operating in international waters.

The firm, which also runs aquaculture and F&B management subsidiaries, built China’s first long-distance reefer for the tuna industry. The ‘Ping Tai Rong Leng 1’ returned to Zhoushan before Christmas but will set out again early in the New Year with a second new reefer. Also, last summer, the firm launched two new tuna longline vessels, the Pengtai Rong 316 and the Pengtai Rong 318.

Yu Xiong Wei, chief engineer at Ping Tai Rong Ocean Fishery Co., was elected to this year’s sitting of the People’s Congress of Zhejiang province and has promised to use his new position to promote the long distance fishing sector.

Yu, who said he sees a “prosperous” future for China’s fishery sector in international waters, was selected by Communist Party selection process in Zhoushan, a major fishing port and seafood processing hub in Zheijiang province which is Ping Tai's home base.